Nuke weapons accidents on U.S. soil

Two dramatic nuclear accidents described in book detailing U.S. Air Force gaffes. The information is based on FOI (Freedom of Information) requests, part of your "right to know" under U.S. law.

Schlosser's central narrative is built around a deadly 1980 explosion at a missile silo in Damascus, Arkansas, where the W-53 thermonuclear warhead, the most powerful weapon ever mounted on a missile, sat atop a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

On January 23, 1961, a B-52 packing a pair of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs suffered a refueling snafu and went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina. In the cockpit of the rapidly disintegrating bomber was a lanyard attached to the bomb-release mechanism. Intense G-forces tugged hard at it and unleashed the nukes, which, at four megatons, were 250 times more powerful than the weapon that leveled Hiroshima. One of them "failed safe" and plummeted to the ground unarmed. The other weapon's failsafe mechanisms—the devices designed to prevent an accidental detonation—were subverted one by one.

Absent the Soviet threat, it's easy to forget that these ungodly devices are still all around us. An entire generation is blissfully unaware of the specter of nuclear devastation.

A Sneak Peek at Eric Schlosser's Terrifying New Book on Nuclear Weapons His six-year investigation of America's mishaps and near-misses will scare the daylights out of you.

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Little short of a villain: this U.S. pilot, 50 years ago, dropped a nuclear bomb in U.S. waters, a bomb nobody has been able to find and make safe.

Shortly after midnight on 5 February 1958, Howard Richardson was on a top-secret training flight for the US Strategic Air Command.

It was the height of the Cold War and the young Major Richardson's mission was to practise long-distance flights in his B-47 bomber in case he was ordered to fly from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to any one of the targets the US had identified in Russia.

We thought maybe it was something from outer space, but it could only be another plane

Colonel Howard Richardson

The training was to be as realistic as possible, so on board was a single massive H-bomb - the nuclear weapon he might one day be instructed to drop to start World War III.

As he cruised at 38,000 feet over North Carolina and Georgia, his plane was hit by another military aircraft, gouging a huge hole in the wing and knocking an engine almost off its mountings, leaving it hanging at a perilous angle. His bomber started plummeting to earth and he struggled with the flight deck to get any kind of response.

As he dropped to 20,000 feet, he somehow got the damaged craft under control and levelled out.

He and his co-pilot then made a fateful decision which probably saved both their lives and the lives of countless people on the ground.

As he dropped to 20,000 feet, he somehow got the damaged craft under control and levelled out.

He and his co-pilot then made a fateful decision which probably saved both their lives and the lives of countless people on the ground. He managed to direct the B-47 a mile or two off the coast of Savannah and opened the bomb doors, dropping the bomb somewhere into the shallow waters and light sand near Tybee Island.

Immediately after the crash, a search was set up to find the unexploded nuclear weapon, buried somewhere too close for comfort to the US's second-largest eastern seaport and one of its most beautiful cities.

Numerous other searches have followed, both official and unofficial, and each of them has also proved unsuccessful.

So the bomb remains tucked away on the sea-bed, in an area which is frequently dredged by shrimp fishermen...

[Some] raise apocalyptic fears of a thermonuclear explosion which could destroy much of the US eastern seaboard.

Fears have also been expressed that the bomb could be located and recovered by a terrorist group, and there are even some who believe that may already have happened.

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Taxpayers can take stock of how the federal government spent their 2007 income tax dollars: over 42 percent went towards military spending, while education received just over 4 percent. The National Priorities Project shows how the average Tulsan family is diverting $360 of their 2007 income tax dollars to buy military hardware, military services, military advertising, military recruiters, and to pay down war debt accumulated by the military during past wars. The campaign for a Peace Tax in lieu of War Taxes is a nationwide campaign.